1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for extruding foodstuff material and shaping this material into blanks for forming foodstuff articles.
Foodstuff material such as dough may be extruded to form blanks for subsequent treatment to make such products as pie crusts, tortillas, pancakes, pizza rounds, or other food products. It is also possible to form such products into different shapes such as discs, hearts, triangles, diamonds or the like, whatever is most appropriate. The preferred embodiment of the present invention is used to perform the extrusion and shaping functions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Apparatus for extrusion and shaping of foodstuff material is presently known. U.S. Pat. No. 2,981,211 --Emerzian discloses a food-product forming machine having a cylinder head unit with a hollow rotatable sleeve inside of this unit. An extrusion slot is formed in the bottom of the cylinder head unit, and dough is pumped into this head unit by a piston arrangement to be subsequently forced out of the extrusion slot while being shaped by the internal rotating sleeve which has a large circumferential opening in its wall.
The dough extrusion machine disclosed in the Emerzian patent has several drawbacks. The cylinder head unit with its internal rotating sleeve is intended to be completely filled with dough at all times, thus exposing the dough to the sleeve support shaft and bearings, which are inside of the head unit where sanitary cleansing is difficult. A radial support post for rthe rotating sleeve must be churned through the dough as the sleeve revolves, thus interfering with the volume of dough in the head unit. Consequently, substantial power is consumed driving the rotating sleeve and churning the radial post through the dough while at the same time pumping the cylinder full of dough. In addition, the internal sleeve shapes one dough product at a time, alternatively completely opening and completely closing the extrusion slot. Thus, severe pressure surges or fluctuations are generated within the dough as it approaches the extrusion slot, because there is a change from Zero flow to full flow and back to zero flow during each cycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,320,905 -- Urschel discloses a conical disc which rotates past a sequence of slots through which dough is extruded. The disc has a number of die openings which produce the desired dough blank shapes. Similar systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,255,715 and 3,329,101 also issued to Urschel.
Other prior art extrusion apparatus using revolving members are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,525,785 -- Fairbanks; 3,748,079 -- Moreno, et al.; and 3,680,994 -- Longenecker.
Prior art foodstuff extrusion apparatus of the type referred to above having disadvantages which are overcome by the present invention as will be explained.